This is a blog centering on Dr. Petrosino's course at The University of Texas at Austin entitled " EDC 365E Project Based Instruction in STEM Education." This is the capstone course in the UTeach Natural Sciences professional development sequence. It also serves as a forum for Dr. Petrosino's thoughts and ideas on Project Based Instruction and educational reform.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Class 19: 11/03/11-UTeach Portfolio

Today, class started out with our master teacher, Prudie, going over portfolio logistics such as naming attachments properly, highlighting parts of lessons you want the grader to see, and leaving no doubt in the graders mind that you understand the requirement. She provided us with two handouts: a check list for us to use and a list of all the sections we are required to have complete for the preliminary portfolio. Sarah informed us that if we remembered doing an activity in a UTeach class we can write about it without having any artifacts from it, although it’s best to have artifacts.

After the 35 minute discussion over the portfolio, Dr. Petrisino took over class. He first gave us five minutes to discuss the portfolio with classmates. Once this was over there was a class discussion about the reading we had for Thursday by Kirschner, Sweller & Clark. One student started the discussion with a recap of the article. She said that the article claims that inquiry based learning affects working memory instead of long-term memory. She believes that working memory affects long term memory and most likely will store into your long term memory. Dr. Petrisino had a list on the document camera and the first thing written down was: Cognitive Argument- Long-term memory Vs. short-term memory.

Another student went on to say that the authors said PBI is too focused on the scientific process. The authors realize this is an effective way to learn, but is it necessary all the time? The next bullet on Dr. Petrisino’s list was: Process over content/Disciplinary learning.

Another Student pointed out that the argument went along with the Expert Blind Spot argument. After this a student pointed out that benefits from PBI vary among students based on whether they are lower ability or higher ability students.

A big conversation starter that was mentioned was the fact that PBI students didn’t do so well on assessments in school, but once in Medical school they did well on their clinicals. Dr. Petrisino criticized different types of assessment. If it’s a good assessment, then it will not test the type of instruction. PBI tries to tie in factual, transfer, and conceptual concepts and relate them to real world experiences. Direct instruction is not a bad thing, but there is a time and place. He then gave an example about the students doing the rocket experiment. The students needed to be guided when they reached a dead end so they called in an expert that gave a lecture.

Class was cut short today and this was the last thing that had been discussed. All the other bullets on Dr. Petrisino’s list followed from the discussions by the students during class time.

Each day in PBI a different student takes responsibility for blogging about what goes on in class. Today’s blog is brought to you by Stephanie­­­.

About Me

Dr. Petrosino is a graduate of Columbia University's Teachers College (MA, 1990) and received his PhD from Vanderbilt University (1998). He completed a post-doc at the University of Wisconsin where he was a member of the National Center for Improving Student Learning and Achievement in Mathematics and Science (NCISLA). In 1999 he accepted a Professorship at the University of Texas and received tenure in 2004. He holds the Elizabeth G. Gibb Endowed Fellowship in Mathematics Education. Dr. Petrosino has published over 20 peer reviewed journal articles, made over 100 national and international conference presentations and has supervised a dozen doctoral dissertations. He has received over 30 million dollars in grants from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Education and the McDonnel Foundation for Cognitive Studies. He is a founding professor of the nationally recognized UTeach Natural Sciences preservice teacher education program. From July 2007 to August 2009 he served as the Assistant to the Superintendent in the Hoboken School District.